


December 10: reacquainted

by dizzy



Series: farewell and gtfo 2016 daily fic advent [10]
Category: Glee RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-11
Updated: 2016-12-11
Packaged: 2018-09-07 18:43:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8811919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzy/pseuds/dizzy
Summary: prompt: chris is extremely nervous when darren brings him home with him for christmas for the first time - cerena and bill are instantly in love with him and Christmas role-play or dress-up





	

Chris is thirty years old and he’s _meeting the parents._

He feels like the teenager that he never was. 

“They already love you,” Darren says. 

“They don’t love me,” Chris says. “They don’t know me.” 

“They totally know you.” 

“We hugged hello and goodbye a few times.” 

“You hung out with them that whole time I was filming one day.” 

“They _moderately liked_ me as your _coworker_ ,” Chris says. “This is different.” 

It doesn’t matter that he’s actually met them at least a dozen times before. That didn’t count. That was meeting them. This is _meeting them_. 

“It’s only two days,” Darren says. He leans over and gives Chris a quick kiss. “You’ll live. I promise.”

*

Cerina hugs him hello. She’s wearing a bright green jacket and red pants, projecting someone so much larger than her stature would allow.

Bill hugs him too, a quick one with a slightly too-hard pat on the back. 

Lucie and Chuck stay where they’re at, waving lazing. He’s wearing a Santa hat and her earrings have bells on them. It’s undeniably Christmas, undeniably a familiar affair. 

At dinner that night, Chris tries not to think about who might have filled the chair he’s sat in over the years. Darren’s glad to have him there. Darren’s family don’t seem to be mourning whoever Darren brought home last. They make him feel welcome and wanted and involved. 

He relaxes in tiny bits and pieces, an unsteady truce with his nerves that fluctuate but ultimately stay within a range he can deal with. 

*

Chris sleeps in Darren’s room that night. It’s a guest room most of the time but there are touches of Darren there. Darren has that way of always leaving pieces of himself around the people that he loves. A few outfits in the closet, a notebook with half-written song lyrics in the drawer, a spot cleared just for his guitar in the corner of the room. 

They kiss before bed but do nothing more, curling up together and talking quietly until Darren’s eyes slip shut in between one sentence and the next. 

*

The house is warm. It stays warm, not just in temperature but in spirit. There’s the laughter of children and the conversation of adults, and music, always music. 

It’s lovely. 

It’s too lovely, sometimes. 

Chuck and Darren force Cerina into a mother-and-sons photo taking session and it’s suddenly overwhelming in a way things like this haven’t been in years. 

He puts his drink down carefully and walks outside. The air is balmy, and it feels like every Christmas growing up. 

He used to sing at Christmas time. He used to make Hannah put on shows for them. He’d try to help decorate the tree, and grow bored after ten minutes. 

It’s been so long. It feels like ages. Like a lifetime. 

Lucie finds him outside. He feels awkward at first, like he’s been caught. It’s rude to leave a party. But she just leans against the railing beside him and says, “Sometimes I need a break, too.” 

She doesn’t volunteer why, or ask him what prompted him to leave and he’s grateful for that. 

*

Darren’s Santa Claus is hot, literally hot in that he’s wearing four layers. And also maybe a little of the other kind of hot, because domesticity is a kink and Darren is doing this for the sake of his niece and nephew)

Chris helps him pad his stomach with pillows under the cheap red felt suit, helps him straighten the elastic banded beard, and even sits on his lap for the weirdest makeout session they’ve ever had. 

The kids love him. They clamber all over him, telling Santa all their wishes and delighting in the candy canes Darren gives him. 

*

Christmas morning is too much food and opening stockings in their pajamas. There’s one for Chris, and he realizes Cerina must have asked Darren what to get him because in amongst the small gift cards and chocolates are a few Diet Coke flavored lip balms and his favorite aftershave and some toys for Brian and Cooper. 

Christmas dinner is too much food and too many presents. Chris will absolutely never wear the socks that Cerina gets him, but the scarf from Chuck and Lucie is nice. The kids have drawings for everyone, specially made that morning (Chuck says) and everyone gets a framed portrait of them. Darren beams down at his and looks at Chris when he says, “It’ll look in that one spot by the tv, right?” 

“Yeah,” Chris says, soft and smiling, because he hadn’t even known if Darren told his parents they were moving in together but he shouldn’t have been worried. (And because yeah, it will look good there.)

*

“So,” Darren says, as the put the last bag in the trunk. “Not so bad, right?”

Chuck’s kids are running around the yard playing with their Christmas presents. Darren’s parents are by the door, waiting for their final farewell hugs. 

Chris feels a tug looking at the sight. “No,” he says. “Not bad at all.”


End file.
